In orthopaedic surgery there are many procedures that make use of a tendon or a ligament graft which is tunnelled into a bone tunnel. The goal is to reconstruct a ligament where no other option may work and where the surgeon needs to recreate a strong ligament/tendon interface as part of a procedure.
As shown in FIG. 1, those familiar in the art of orthopaedic surgery know that the task of passing a tendon or a ligament graft 10 into a bone 20 having a bone tunnel 30 can be a very frustrating experience. In most instances the graft to be tunnelized sustains significant damage in the process. It is often desirable to pass the thickest graft possible through the smallest tunnel, but even passage of a graft through a bone tunnel that is near equal in size is simply not practical and the surgeon has to settle for passing a significantly smaller graft through a larger tunnel to avoid the complications of the process.
The present invention seeks to lessen these problems by providing a device and method which allows a tissue structure such as a tendon or a ligament to be inserted into a bone tunnel without many of the disadvantages of conventional devices and methods.